401 - What No One Tells You About The Sex Industry

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Listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo and you are listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking free from compulsive sexual behavior. Today is episode 401 and here joining me as my co host again after our 400th episode celebration is Mrs. Ashley Jameson. Ashley, good to see you again.

Good to see you too. I'm really excited to be here and.

About this episode, yes, today's episode is a little unique, maybe a little different conversation than we've had because we are starting a three part series we're calling the Other side of the Screen and focusing on some of the topics of what happens to people who are involved in the industry. What are the outcomes of this whole area of our world which so often people get stuck in a way of thinking that says, well, no one's being hurt or this isn't impacting anyone. And I think in this three part series we're gonna kinda see the other side of the equation and how deeply people are impacted. As we interview a new friend of the show today named Ray Jordan. And Ray works as a therapist and a lot of her clientele are women who are coming out of the adult dancing industry, as she calls it, have been in adult film type activities and she is working with the women who have been impacted by the other side of the screen. So Ashley, give us a little bit of your thoughts on our conversation with Ray.

I am excited about this episode even though it is a more sensitive topic because at Pure Desire, I love that we're willing to enter the territories and talk about the things that not a lot of people are talking about. Somewhere in my life I've intersected with a lot of the things we deal with at Pure Desire, including this subject. And I think it's important for Christians to have a safe place to be able to hear real conversations. And so I am very excited to be able to offer that today to our listeners.

Yeah.

And I think for anyone listening, what this does is it just kind of broadens our scope of this problem. Sometimes I think in churches we look at it like, well, the problem is that, that men look at pornography or people are looking at online porn. And there, there is a lot more to the equation. There's things happening culturally and there are the people being impacted by it and that are being sucked into this industry that maybe have a very different story than we might think of them. And I believe what today's episode can do for all of us is it humanizes the women that get sucked up into this, that have been a part of this industry and maybe helps us take a new level of motivation towards our healing and recovery. Because it's not just about me anymore. I mean, yes, in recovery, we want to be free, but when we see, like, oh, this is part of a greater human predicament, this is something happening in our culture that is just all around unhealthy, I think we can be inspired to say, like, I don't want any part of it, and I'm going to do the work it takes to make sure I'm on the healthy side of supporting women and vulnerable people in our world and not taking advantage of them.

I mean, we are all. We are all hurting in some way, shape or form all the time. And we always say sex addiction is not about sex.

And.

And it can be a struggle to. To work with both sides of the situation as we do as a ministry. And I just, you know, I think giving space for that and being able to say, we are all humans, we are all struggling. We all long for true intimacy and to be loved and accepted. And when we don't find that in Christ the way we. We should be, or our beliefs get distorted, we go looking in other ways. And so when you get to the core of it and you get past the things that can be so not attractive or painful or harmful, at the core, we're. We're all just hurting people.

Wanting.

Wanting that love and acceptance.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a powerful conversation. It's a unique conversation. And in some ways it's. It's a little bit of a gritty conversation. And so we do want to give a trigger warning up front before this episode to say that Ray Jordan works with a lot of women coming out of the industry, and she's pretty comfortable with some of the terminology, the scenarios that for listeners, we really encourage you to discern, is that a level of conversation you're comfortable with, and if you are feeling triggered, if it's describing situations that are a little too close to home. We've got 400 other fantastic episodes. We'd encourage you maybe to pause on this one or, you know, to listen to it with someone else, that could be kind of a safeguard or a sounding board because we don't want. While we want to deal very honestly with these topics and we want to have very truthful conversations, we also know they may not be the right conversation for everybody in recovery. So we just really want to encourage listeners to practice discretion. And that applies to betrayed spouses as well. Right.

Ashley?

Absolutely.

I mean, I'm what, over 10 years into our healing and recovery process, and there's still times where I may be watching a show and a scene of prostitution comes on or is alluded to, and I am triggered. And sometimes it comes out of nowhere, and other times I'm not triggered because that's my husband's story and past is prostitute using prostitutes. And, um. And so I would just say, take care of yourself. And if you do feel triggered, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're. You're broken or you haven't done the work. A trigger is just that. It could just remind us of a painful time. And so either, like Nick said, listen to one of the other 400 episodes or whether it's this episode or another, and maybe you do feel a little triggered and you've continued to listen. Make sure you take care of your mind after the episode, and you don't let your mind just spin on that, because that's where we can really go down quickly. So find something else to do or call one of your group members and say, hey, I listened to this episode, but this was triggering for me, and I just want to talk through that trigger.

Yes, because we want to be a part of your healing and recovery and not a part of your faster scale. So please take care of yourself, practice discretion.

But again, I think it's a powerful conversation.

A little bit more about Ray Jordan before we jump in. She is a former radical libertarian feminist. There's a mouthful. Who came from a very diverse immigrant family system. She had planned on being an economist or a lawyer before she was radically saved as a College student in 2001. She spent most of her 20s in a Hollywood ministry doing evangelistic outreach with young professional actors and musicians, but eventually left that scene to further pursue a professional career as a Christian therapist and to start a family of her own. She's been married for 19 years, homeschools her four children, and speaks to local churches and schools about issues pertaining to mental health and the gospel. So here is our conversation with Ray Jordan on what no one tells you about the sex industry.

Ray, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the invite.

Yes, well, we're excited to have you on and to get to cover what our listeners will hear about some unique elements of this area and maybe a part of it that we don't always think about because we focus on recovery and addiction and the betrayal side. But there's also another element of those who've been impacted by a very sexualized Culture and a sexualized world. And that's a lot of the. The experience that you have in working with people. So before we jump into that, since this is your first time on the podcast, would you just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you became involved in the work that you do?

Yeah. Thank you. I'll start with just. I'm a wife. My husband and I have been together for almost 22 years. I'm a homeschooling mom of four, ranging from 14 all the way down to one. And if you had told me that I'd be nursing a baby at 44 and that would be my fourth kid, back when I was like in my teens or twenties, when I was a radical feminist agnostic, I would have laughed at you. But God can change hearts. And I'm living a very different life. I'm a speaker and a consultant, like I do talks on mental health and the gospel in my local community out here in the Pacific Northwest. I also work with church leadership, you know, elders and pastors, trying to help them with problems that arise in their congregation or on their staff. And then I'm also a licensed mental health therapist, and I've been doing that for 15 years.

And as a licensed mental health therapist, as we talked about in the introduction, you maybe specialize, whether by choice or not, specialize in a certain clientele. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so. So I see a broad range of people. Like I said, I work with pastors, missionaries, elders, and then all the way to this very other end of the spectrum of life and our American culture, which are exotic dancers is what they call themselves, we would colloquially call them strippers. But I also work with prostitutes, and I've seen a couple people who've done porn type work. And what's really interesting is in one day I'll have like a pastor leaving my office and cross paths with. With a stripper or former stripper. And I just love the work that I do. It's crazy that I get to wear all these different hats. But what's really interesting is I don't really think there's that much of a difference when they all come into my office. We're all human. We all have longings for divine experience and we're pursuing truth and we want to know who God is or what life's about. And then we're also a big mixed up bundle of depravity and sin and brokenness. And so I have had that privilege. I don't advertise to exotic dancers or people in the sex industry. It's, I think, truly supernatural. They come to me one by one and they don't know each other. I don't put it on my website, nothing like that. Like, hey, I specialize in this. They just find me. And I've asked them more than once, I've gotten the feedback, like, why would you come to me? And their answer was, I thought your makeup was on point in your profile picture on my advertising. So I have to laugh about that. One of them even told me, well, yeah, you look like you could have been a stripper. I was like, Thanksgiving, Exactly. I think what she meant was, I can tell that you have an enduring interest in the cosmetological arts, like makeup and stuff. So whatever it is that God uses to bring people in, I, I have to praise him for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is so good. I just love what you said. Even the one gal's comment about, oh, he looks like a stripper. I think that is so important because I always find that people are more comfortable reaching out when they see somebody that looks like them or feels like them. And I think that's why the power of story is so important.

Even if it's not your story, but.

That you, you get it. And, and why just putting it out there and sharing it is so important because then when people hear it, they say, oh, they, they are like me. They do understand. They, they roll in my world and I can reach out to that person. So, I mean, even just having you on today is part of that, like, let's have you on and share some of that and kind of spread that so that people might listen to this and say it's a safe place to reach out for help.

So yeah, I, I'm getting people that come to through my doors that would never step foot in a church and whatever it is that God needs to do to help people hear truth, or at least be invited into an opportunity for it, which everyone that comes into my office does. They get to hear about Jesus once. But yeah, I agree with you. It is amazing how God brings creation together. Two people together that need to have a conversation.

Many listeners might be surprised to think of an adult performer, stripper or prostitute reaching out for counseling. So can you tell us what are some of the issues that are usually driving them to seek counseling?

Yeah, I mean, all of the human things. Like I said previously, there's sometimes not that big of a difference between what a burnt out pastor is wanting to come in and talk about who may be struggling with addictions. Himself and then a. A former dancer who wants to work through her relationship problems with her husband or her children. So just all the human things, which is one of the reasons why I think you guys invited me on here, is that the humanization of people who are in the sex industry is, I think, critically important. And I've had that privilege of sitting in that space with them hearing the most heartbreaking stories, especially from a lot of their upbringings. A lot of them are very abandoned. They have parents who completely neglected their responsibilities towards their children by being very distracted by their own partnering and breakups and drugs and alcohol. And so they're trying to work towards health. And I'm getting the cream of the crop in the sense of they are the kind of person who got out of the industry that want health, that ended up getting a higher education. They want to be good mothers. So there's already some a grace at work inside of them that brings them in as private paying clients. So they're not court mandated or any of that. So I am really blessed and fortunate because they are quite functional. And I have to say this too, they are. Some of, some of those clients have been the most intelligent, thoughtful, engaging people I've ever met. I enjoy talking to them. I'm stimulated by talking to them. I leave those encounters feeling like I have a different opinion on things. So it's been very enriching for me as well.

Yeah, it makes me think about an adage that if, if we knew someone's story, if we knew their whole story, their behaviors, their choices would, would make total sense. Because when we only meet someone, like in a snapshot of their story, it's like, why are they doing that? Or why did they choose that life or that profession? But when we hear the story, it's like, oh, well, that actually makes a lot of sense. And that's, I think, some of what we wanted to ask about today to really humanize and understand women. And let's just say in particular it's women that tend to be the exotic dancers and in prostitution we've maybe never thought about. These are women with a story. And so unpack, in your experience, unpack that for us a little bit about why are women ending up in this type of industry. And I think we all understand there is a side that's illegal. There's. There is abuse out there and there's trafficking, but for the side of it that's not illegal, when we see a willing adult who's chosen that, we might think, well, that's what they want to be doing. That's like their. Their chosen profession.

Right.

But there's more to the story. Tell us about the experience you've seen for most women that end up in this kind of industry.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to do that. You know, I interviewed a lot or several of them over again. I mean, hours prepping for this, asking deeper questions that never actually came up in counseling. So I was appreciative of that. And they all have. There's some similar themes, and I'll be sharing that, which is kind of the aggregate picture. But each of them was very insistent on saying, everybody's unique. It's not all going to be one type that gets in for one reason into that industry. But. But most of them were very young. A lot of them came from family systems that were kind of loose, meaning there's two parents, but they're divorced. And you have a relationship with both of them maybe, but they're both remarried. They live far apart from each other. You're 17, 18. There's a lot of tension. Their stepparents make things complicated. A lot of the times for teenagers, and so the rules kind of come in force with. With teenage rebellion. And then you have a lot of tension. And these young women are like, you know what? I'm going to live on my own. Or there's abuse going on or drugs or whatever. And they want to live on their own. They often are attached to other young people, like a boyfriend who's immature and also abusive. And this is what was told to me by a strip club manager that was one of my clients. He has like 30 years in the industry. He said the vast majority of these young women are supporting their boyfriends who are promising them the world and attachment. And who doesn't want attachment? I mean, it is an eternal desire in the human heart. And this attachment system of my upbringing isn't working right now. But you know what? This guy here, he says he loves me and we're going to make it on our own and we're going to live on our own. And they're excited. That's the time of life where you're ready to live on your own anyway, wanting to launch. So they're young. It's. They're stressed out, they have to pay bills or they've been kicked out, or they're. They've been fostered, and they're ready to be on their own because the system is no longer really caring for them. And so they are desperate. And I would call that limbic functioning. And it's the tyranny of the urgent that's I've got to pay my rent. I don't even know what a deposit is. I'm figuring this out on the fly crap. Like, how do I get a job? And the interesting thing about this industry is if you're somewhat attractive and fit, you can walk in and say, hey, do you. Are you hiring? And you don't even need to go through a process of interviews usually. Sometimes. Excuse me. Sometimes you do. But, like, most of the time, you can be hired on the spot, given a shift the next day. And that's pretty convenient, and it suits the emergency financially. So I would say that's what brings a lot of them in, is financial desperation. They don't have a lot of social capital because they're young. They don't have a lot of financial capital because they're young. And they come oftentimes from a chaotic background.

Yeah, that's fascinating to me, what you said, that many of them are there because of a promise of attachment, a life together. And it occurs to me that even for men and women who are stuck in sexual addiction, whether pornography or other forms of compulsive sexual behavior, it's that same allure of something that I can get right away. I can get my needs met. I can feel okay, I can feel like I'm good enough. I can feel like I have what it takes. And so it's fascinating that kind of. On both sides of the industry, if you will, that those who are consuming it and those providing it are both actually looking for something truer and more real. That, in a sense, God actually made us for. Yes, because God made us for attachment and belonging and importance and to be seen and safe and valued. And in a false way, we're pursuing it, and it leads us into this whole mess on either side of it. And that just is a really interesting, I think, connection point.

I was gonna say the. The strip club manager of 30 years also said that, you know, it's. It's like own little culture and world that has its own rules. And, like, these women are promised empowerment. Like, hey, you know, these are the rules of the state. These are the rules of our club. Like, the men can only do this. And this is so. It's very, like, ordered in a way. In a way, I'll say it's very chaotic, too. And I think these women encounter the chaos after some time, but in some ways, I think a lot of them feel like, hey, I have more empowerment in this world for a guy to get off me. If he's getting out of hand, I can just kind of wave the bouncer over and he'll toss him out. That wasn't happening for me at home when mom's you and hit on me and molested me, because that does happen, or my stepbrother or whatever. I didn't have any empowerment. I wasn't hurt. I didn't know how to talk about it, or if I did, I. It went horribly because there's, you know, dysfunction in the family system in this world. I actually feel like there's a lot more control around that. And one of them even told me, how many waitresses get hit on? Like, they get hit on all the time, but there's not nearly as many strict rules as you would have in a club. So for me, I felt like I'm dealing with the same garbage that women have to deal with in any kind of work environment, except we've got a lot of rules for it in a bouncer. So I was thinking, man, that's interesting. That's kind of that reactionary thinking as well, that template from my family of origins. I'm reacting against that if I'm thinking like a dancer or someone about to go into that industry. And this makes me feel safer. And I know that sounds weird to people, but I experienced that myself my freshman year of college. I had moved away from my hometown, moved 1,000 miles away, and I had had a very toxic and dangerous relationship with somebody by force, who was a porn addict, who had a lot more power than me in our community. His parents had more power than mine in our community. And I needed to get away from him. Well, he stalked me, found me, and I felt so unsafe that the first place that I could find refuge in, quote, unquote, was a fraternity. So I fled in there and hung out there for two years because I felt like, well, I'm flanked by men. There's rules here, too. There's chaos. But, man, I'll take my risks with that. Because out here in this other way of living, that I was doing nothing that I could do was protecting me. Nothing worked. I didn't believe in the legal system. I didn't feel like I had the money. I felt overwhelmed by that. I was young. I didn't want to get a lawyer. I didn't have the money for that. I didn't have a relationship with my parents enough to ask them for help. So this seemed expedient. It was immediate, and it was a temporary solution. Was it more damaging to me in the long Run. Totally. And that is what ends up happening to a lot of these women as well.

In seeking safety, they end up finding even more harm.

Yep, exactly. But you're trading it out. It's a different type of.

Yeah.

And I think that even, like, circles back to just how we network together, what you're doing and what we're doing, because it. It is all the same at the root of it and even the lack of safety. So, like, when I had experience, raped and was sexually acting out and very much a little exhibition, it's myself at a young age going to strip clubs, doing all the things that I thought were cool and would get me attention and those kinds of things. When I tried to go to the church, I ended up feeling more shame because of the way they talked about these things. And so then it's like, then that shame pushes you back into an environment where at least I feel safe being myself in this environment. Even though that's not who I wanted to be, I felt safe. And then on the flip side of that, like the John, which. My husband's name is John, he did lose his virginity to prostitutes, and he went from a super religious, too many rules, lots of shame household, diving right into prostitution because the. The natural way of going about being intimate in a relationship was too intimidating. And so like you, you see these rooted traumas that drive these behaviors need of, like, feeling in control or feeling like you're going to be the one in control over your sexuality if it had been robbed from you or abused. And then on the other side, just seeking for. Seeking unconditional love in your family. And it's like it all boils down to, we need to create safety and acceptance in our homes, in our churches, and let people know they're loved and they're accepted wherever they're at and that they don't have to do these things to. To get attention, but those things have to be done with actions and not just words from the church and from parents and from the people who want to be part of the solution.

Yes, absolutely.

You know, as helpers and, and our. And our podcast listeners, like, want to recognize that these conversations can be so triggering. Um, I'm thinking back to one of the women's conferences we had where the betrayed spouses didn't want to be at the conference with the addict women, and the addict women didn't want to be there with betrayed spouses. And we were so intentional going into the next year of. You know, I. I think I just read it this morning in a book that Says, help me to love those that sin differently than I do, that we all have sin and we all have behaviors that are not healthy. And as a betrayed spouse, I know that there are times where I'm watching a movie and something with a prostitute scene or stripper scene comes on, and I'm, like, instantly triggered because that's. That's my husband's history, you know, um, and even though I did some of those things as a younger person, it's. It's like these conversations, we have to be willing to have them even though they're uncomfortable. And. And being uncomfortable doesn't mean that it's wrong or that we shouldn't have them. Because when you look at even just the newest stats that came out of our Barna report, and. And having, you know, a third of. Of people say that they have a spouse who views porn, that's a big chunk of our population who could potentially want to just shut this conversation out because it's too painful to have. And so I'm just really glad that we are having it and just continuing to put it out there, because the more that we're able to talk about it in a. In a healthy way and from a godly perspective, I think the more it can neutralize some of the feelings that are attached for our listeners who either have that past and still have shame attached to it or are betrayed spouses and have triggers attached to it. Just, you know, kind of.

I'm.

Bring it.

I totally agree with you. And I'm one of those. I have both roles as well, Ashley. Like, at a crazy past until I was 21, so I sinned very, you know, fully. And then I also have worked through betrayal trauma as well. And it's really interesting because a lot of the women that were in the sex industry are actually profoundly heartbroken themselves. Themselves around their husband's sexual addictions. And they have the added disadvantage of their husband's going, well, you are a dancer, so why do you care? I go to the clubs, and she's like, but I'm not anymore. And I think those places are unhealthy. And now he has the extra barb to twist into her back occasionally. And so I'm viewing them as both, you know, someone who's been part of the supply of the problem, the supply part of the problem. And then also their grappling with the demands, you know, trauma. And that's affected their family system and their. Their marriages and their lives, and they hurt. I mean, their hearts are broken, too. So we're all Just a bunch of messy people trying to make life work in very dysfunctional ways.

Well, both of you are getting into really why I wanted to do this podcast, because I think we're, we're just getting to the point for some churches where they're starting to talk about pornography. But then when you talk about like adult entertainment and, and clubs and all, like, that's another level of, like, well, we really don't know how to go there. And if people are doing that, like, that's a whole different level of behavior. And I mean, in some regard, the damage it causes, the, the way that can end people's careers and reputations, there is a level there. But in truth, the behaviors of what people are choosing to do, it's all connected to the same roots. It's all connected to the same lies that we believe about ourselves or others. And, and that's what I think we're so passionate about doing. A pure desire is making this a conversation that we can have and not seeing whether it's an adult entertainer or someone who goes and pays for a prostitute as being a different category of sinner. Like they've got some worse problem. Like it may have taken them to a more extreme behavior, but the roots of it are, are what we're all dealing with.

Our nature is the root problem. And we all have.

And the more we can talk about that, I think the more we can help one another, we can support each other and we can change our stance in just how we view our world. And that's what leads in my next question, because I think the cultural narrative, and this is really growing, I think currently, is that for women that are in adult entertainment, escort services, even prostitution, that they're doing this by choice, they're well paid, and so let's just let them have their jobs and careers. And who are we to interfere and let people pay for it if they want? What's the big deal? So from your experience in working and helping women that have been on that side, where would you say this narrative is untrue and is destructive really for our culture?

Yeah, I want to address that quickly. You know, some of them told me, well, we didn't actually make that much money. We thought we'd make a lot more. So the payout wasn't what was promised when they were told they had the job.

It was the people over us making money.

I thought they're making hand over fist. And one of the strip Clubs manager of 30 years told me, he's like, all of them are male who own These clubs, or most of them at the very top of the pyramid of these business structures, almost all of them are men and they're exploiting and profiting substantially off the bodies of these women who we think, well, they're making a lot of money and in a way you can. But they, they only take home about less than half of their receipts. They owe the club and then also the bouncers. And here's what one of them told me, which was interesting. She said, if you don't pay that bouncer handsomely, in many cases he won't protect you. So you actually have to do more soft prostitution on the side to make enough to pay him enough to take care of the riff raff and the intrusions you don't want. And so it's this kind of tight spiral of dysfunction and exploitation where you have the dancers exploiting men for money, the men exploiting their brokenness and relational and financial poverty to fulfill a temporary fantasy. And then you've got the club itself that's exploiting both. So it's just a big, big mess, I would say. So not all of them are making a lot of money.

Well, you used a word that I think is important because it really, to me brings up the tension our culture, and in some ways even the church doesn't seem to be willing to address that. On the one hand, we want to say, hey, you know, let people do what they want, it's a free world, it's no big deal. But then I think everyone, when they hear your explanation, would agree this is exploitation. Yes, on both sides, people are being exploited. And in any industry in our world, when we have recognized like that children were being exploited in factories in foreign countries, we said, that's not okay. We're not going to be engaged in buying clothing or shoes where people have been exploited to produce that product. And yet in this area of our world, we've kind of turned a blind eye to what we all know. Again, when we hear it explained that way, it's like, wow, this is totally exploitation.

Yes.

And I bring that up not to make anyone feel guilt and shame because I think in some level, if any of us have looked at pornographic material, we've been involved in that industry of exploitation. So we, we could sit here and feel the shame of it. But what I hope is it does create that deeper motive of this is not innocuous. This is not just a little thing that people do. This is not like, you know, we hear phrases like boys will be boys, or pornography's as old as the world, it's always going to be around, and we so actively minimize it that we need a part of us that rises up and goes, no, this is exploitation.

Yes.

And if I'm engaged in it with a little bit or a whole lot, I'm a part of the exploitation. And something in us ought to say, no more. I'm not going to let it be little anymore. I'm going to be a part of the health, the move towards goodness and righteousness in our culture. And whether we're Christian or not, I think we should be able to see that and go, why do we allow for exploitation when it's so clearly happening again on both sides of the equation?

Yeah, I came up with four scenarios just to jump off the back of that comment. You can only get one of four situations when you're lusting after a dancer, a porn star or a nude model or whatever, you're purchasing sex from somebody. One is that they are coerced, they're manipulated and deceived or trafficked. And they need your prayers for their salvation and healing and deliverance, not your temporary suspension of your moral convictions to abandon, you know, your, your frame of reference for Christianity and your wife and your children and forget the fear of the Lord so that you can pleasure yourself to their misfortune temporarily. They don't need that. They need your prayers. Or they come from unhealthy and unloved backgrounds where they just fell through the cracks like a lot of the women that I met. Again, they don't need you to temporarily suspend your morality to enjoy their, their misfortune. Or they come from supportive but worldly families, and in that case, the whole family needs prayer because they haven't really encountered the true light of Christ. Or if they have, they've. They've rejected it. So we need to pray for them. And so now you have a whole family system needing that. Or fourth scenario, they come from a loving Christian home, which is probably a very small majority. I bet it's out there, though. And those girls or those, those men, whoever's in that industry have parents and family members who are agonizing over the backsliding condition of their daughter or their son. And again, we're not supposed to be pleasuring ourselves to the backslidden state of a brother or sister or a child of brothers and sisters in Christ. And I'm not saying that to shame anyone. I've purchased pornography. I've lived in sin. I can't throw stones. I'm usually the biggest sinner in the room. But I am saying that because being Christian means saying hard things and there is a lot of exploitation in this world and Christians are not called to be in alignment with that darkness, but to come into his marvelous light and be a completely different agent of change for those people. And I do think that we'll get to the later points of what can we do. Praying for people in that industry I think is essential.

What I was going to mention, you know, you guys touched on, you know, the idea that in some of these instances people can say, oh, well, they, they signed up for that they weren't coerced or, or whatnot. And I remember just really having an eye opening moment when I was reading a, an article from the national center of Sexual Exploitation about when people pay for sex. So even if a, let's say a woman is a sex worker, let's say she has no trauma, even though that's probably not ever true, she's a sex worker and somebody pays for it, that once they pay for it, they, they can think most of the time that they should get what they want because they paid for it. And so there's actually a lot of sex workers or prostitutes that end up even being raped. Oh yeah, even though they signed up for sex that night, but they didn't sign up for that for life altering or damaging injuries, abuse. But the person paying is like, well, this is what I paid for, so I'm going to get what I paid for. And, and that is just tragic in itself too, just how violent pornography and even prostitution usually is.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up because the strip club manager specifically got into that with me and developed that more. He said it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when you get sexually assaulted as a, as a dancer. So he said he would try to keep women out of it if they had a certain kind of favor with him. He liked them. He thought that, you know, you don't belong in this world, like, how do I help you get out of this? And he said that he would try because he would warn them, man, I don't want to hire you because it's just a matter of time before you're totally damaged and too broken to have a functional life after this. And a number of the girls reported that too. It's just par for the course, especially when you involve alcohol, which some of these clubs have. There's going to be people who cross lines and they get violent. I mean, I, I don't think I can even tell you some of the Stories that were relayed to me, they're too graphic.

Yeah. I think it's a good lead into our next question, too, of how could awareness of real people and real stories involved in this industry change how we think about pornography in general? And also, how could this be eye opening for the man or woman who says, I'm just looking at online porn. I don't ever go to real people clubs, you know, et cetera.

Yeah, well, I don't see how they're any different. If you think looking at porn is that different from seeing someone live, it's like one is live and the other one's canned. What difference does it make if something comes out a few months later and it's edited? You're still viewing real people who are impoverished, at least spiritually, if not emotionally, relationally, financially. And how do you know the level of exploitation of those actors or those performers or those people, whether in porn or at a club? You don't know. They do have, like, ethical porn, but I. I don't think that most people who have viewed pornography for any length of time have only viewed ethical porn. We have probably all seen people who are being profoundly abused in the background in a hidden way and have exploited their vulnerability and taken advantage of that. So I would say there's no difference. And we're still dehumanizing them. I did want to get into this briefly. There's two types of dehumanization in the literature. There's mechanistic dehumanization, which you see a lot of corporations do. It's what Scrooge did with Bob Cratchit. You know, like, you're just a piece, a cog in the big system that I'm using in order for me to benefit. But we do that in advertising and commercials and things like that. And then there's animalistic dehumanization. And the brain studies on this show that when we view people in a sexualized nude manner, we begin associating them with animals. And I mean, is there any wonder to that? When you call them a Playboy bunny or a Penthouse Pet? I mean, these are very dehumanizing ways of. And joking about it. They're dressing up in little bunny suits. Like, it's because we'd rather view them as not having higher moral reasoning abilities or dreams and plans and spiritual inquiries and hopes. They're just a horny animal that I can use because I'm going to temporarily function in that. That mode. I'm going to go limbic, you know, the base of my brain and my midbrain. I'm not going to use any of my frontal lobes, and I'm just going to operate as a beast. And we're not meant to be beasts. We're meant to be human and regard each other as human. And again, not suspend my morality and my Christian beliefs and my honor and fear of God for just a moment so that I can see this person as an animal and act like an animal. That's not how God intended sex, even though I have. Everyone here has acted that way, like we're all needing to come out of that adamic nature which has fallen.

Well, and what you're bringing up, Ray, is that that's happening whether we're seeing someone live and. And in person or through a screen, our brain is going through that same process. And the other thing that came to mind for me, you know, a growing industry is going to be everything with AI and cartoons, which already was a huge genre of pornography. But I think that's going to grow. And the excuse that I've already heard and I think people are going to really battle with is, well, those aren't real people. So now it is okay, but your brain doesn't know the difference. So your brain is still engaging in a permissive way of saying, it's okay for me to dehumanize another person or an image of a person, even if they're not real, for my own good. And that impacts you. That impacts your brain. And when I say your brain doesn't know the difference, it's like the idea of, you know, when I've watched Inside Out a cartoon, right? I know it's drawings and voices and none of it's real, but I tear up. I engage with the story. I can see myself in it.

Why?

Because my brain interacts like it's a real thing. And so whether it's cartoons or AI or real people, our brain is engaging in a way of saying this is what it means to connect sexually with someone. And if that's not in the context of a real human being in a relationship that God designed for us, we are moving towards exploitation and dehumanizing and all the stuff that in our thinking brain, we would say, I don't want that. I don't want any part of that. So we have to really draw that line and say the question. Ashley is almost like asking, well, is there. And I did a podcast recently, the guy almost asked me the question because he was a little confused, I think, by our stance about pornography. And he said, well, is there an acceptable level of porn use. And I said, it's like asking, how much poison can I drink before it hurts me? I said, I mean, is there an amount of arsenic I could drink that would probably not kill me? I'm sure there's a level, but it's still poison.

Yeah, it's still affecting you.

Why would I want to have any level of poison? There's no healthy level. And I think having that same perspective around dehumanizing sexuality, whether real or artificial, through a screen, is creating that same struggle and challenge for us to address.

The AI piece very quickly. AI is a composite of millions of images or videos and the computers coming up with an aggregate. Those are still real people that went into that algorithm or that program. I'm kind of dumb with that stuff, so I don't know what you'd call it, but it's still real people. Because AI cannot just create something out of nothing. It has to go off of the data that it's been fed. And so that's still exploitation. Those are still people.

Well, you know, I've heard Christians often say, you know, one of their. Their ways that they stand against pornography, like, well, that's all airbrushed and it's not real, and then we won't be able to love real people. And it's like, that's true. And if that's our problem with pornography, AI is that times a thousand, because it is taking the very best of what you want in your carnal nature and giving it to you in whatever form you're looking for. And it. It just. It. It takes you away from the real relationships God designed us for.

Well, so.

And that's what we want to stand against.

Exactly. And even if the person. Person or the image isn't real on the other end of it, let's just give you that as a. A thought experiment for the viewer or the listener. You yourself are not acting in the imago day if you're acting that way, because that is not how God created your sexuality. He created you for intimacy and for love, for sacrifice and for faith. And so regardless of what's out there, and that really matters. That's the whole point of this podcast. Right? But what also matters is you, the user, are also falling short of your own high calling to be in the image of Christ, the imago of day. You're now functioning in the imago homo, the image of Adam fallen degenerate, like that I have. I can call myself that. And the whole journey of the Christian is to let Christ conquer that nature and there's different, you know, ways to that. And I think prayer programs and groups and things like that can be an immensely helpful part of that. But we're supposed to be coming out of that nature and into the conquering of Christ to where we're transfigured. I don't even want that anymore. That's what he's really after.

Yeah, that's. That's such a great point. That regardless of what's on the other side of the screen or the stage or wherever we're at, I'm still real and what's happening in me is real. And it's either going to take me towards God's purposes for my life or away from them. And that matters.

I think that's where a lot of the shame comes from afterwards, is not just what I did to them and that, you know, there's a legitimate pain there and a recognition like, I am not entreating this person with righteousness. You are not regarding yourself as worthy of righteous conduct and behaviors and choices. You are temporarily walking out of that and functioning out of the other engine, so to speak. And so that is also where we feel shame. Because, like, I am made for more than that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I have women in my women's groups, our unraveled groups, and along with AI, the ability to just become a stripper online webcam person out of your own room, even while your children are in the other room, has become so easy that it's. It's becoming assembling block for women who easily have their own web cam profile, even if they're not getting fully nude. And seeing those women come into unraveled into our groups, it is doing exactly that. The shame is still there. They're not walking in who God created them to be. Even if there's this sense of I'm not doing anything physical, I'm not being coerced to do this. That. That shame still separates us from God and from people, and it still ruins relationships.

Yes, absolutely. I've encountered that actually increasingly more Ashley, with my clients. And they're younger and younger, and that's so. I'm so glad I grew up before smartphones or even cell phones. Like, I'm old now. I'm 44. But I just. It's broken my heart to the degree that I've cried in session with a teenage client who was selling pictures of herself on Snapchat and WhatsApp through Venmo as a high schooler. And she's prostituting herself. And I'm like just weeping for her because she doesn't know the long term fruit that that's going to yield for her life because then guys started demanding it and she's like, I thought he really liked me. And I'm like, once you add this thing into the mix of your relationship, it's not just that anymore. So it was very confusing for her. Thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah. Well, as we get closer to the end here, let's turn the corner towards what do we do about this? You know, and I think in recovery we want to use our healing to do good in the world. And so how could today's conversation, how could it motivate us to help in this area and what could we do to help make a difference?

Thank you for asking that. I appreciate the open endedness of that. I'm going to say something that seems so obvious that you guys are going to probably scoff at it, but I think it's worth mentioning and it's so obvious it's hidden in plain sight. Prayer. I think the believer and the struggler, as I often hear you guys reference, can craft a prayer and I recommend this to people a lot. And get a prayer partner in your group or at your church or in a family or even your spouse, that'd be something cool to pray for my spouse with. But to ask the Lord to help you have a renewed mind to holistically view people as the true creation. God intends you to see them and yourself to personalize them and not depersonalize or dehumanize people and asking them, asking the Lord to pray for God's eternal thought and intent for industry workers. So when you feel the urge or the temptation hit you, I mean there's a million things you can do. But another intervention would be pull out your crafted prayer that you wrote with your wife or your partner, your accountability partner, and pray that Lord, help me have the mind of Christ, help me view people the way that you do and help me function in that. So that's one thing that I felt would be good treatment. I was thinking too, in this industry there's been so much helpful change for how things used to be. Like when my husband and I were first married and struggling with discovery and pornography, it was so devastating and the church leadership at the time just like kind of slapped a proverb on his back and like little encouragement and like just pray. And that didn't help. It doesn't help. Most people like you need a whole lot more, which is what you guys are here for. But what's happened, I think over the course of years is we've actually forgotten prayer as one of the most important just because it wasn't the only prescription. It is an absolutely essential part of the whole treatment. Just like you don't treat cancer just with one thing. You need chemo, radiation, you need surgery, you need supplements, you need rest. Prayer is one of those really essential things and I think that's helpful. And I wanted to target one more sect here with prayer. And this is going to seem kind of odd, but church leadership needs to be praying for their people around sexual purity and wholeness and how they view others and having a renewed mind of Christ. You might be thinking, well, they do. I don't think it's that specific. I did my homework, I asked around. I do know quite a few pastors in the area and I called them or I met with them. I even dropped in on their prayer meetings to see what is it that an average church prays for in a week. And our church is like one of the best. Because I happened to surprise the pastor by showing up unexpected and on his list was sexual purity. But when I asked the other church leaders in the area, do you actually pray regularly for sexual purity for your people? There was like, well, no, not unless something comes up.

Sure.

So then it's reactive and it's only temporary. Like, oh, a couple's having a problem, A wife found out that point horn was being used, she's mad. And so we'll pray for them real quick. But for there to be an ongoing regular carrying of what I call a burden in prayer by the church leadership weekly, if not daily with their spouses. Because if you're married and you're a church leader, your spouse hopefully is a believer too. This should be prayed for very regularly. And I think we'd have a lot more attraction with this issue. And it's not a kind of side burner issue, back burner issue. This is when you read the New Testament, oh my gosh, you can't get through half an epistle without sexual immorality and sexual purity coming up, like within the first chapter. Right. And it's so important. And so for me it's very baffling. Why this is not more of a. A prayer point on leaders prayer lists. So that would be out there for any church leader or even if you're not a church leader, pray for your church to come into that. Because I think it's critical. And that's part of why we're seeing this issue get worse. And you might think, well, how do you really know, Andrea, that church leadership isn't praying for it? Your Barna report tells me everything I need to know. So that's my thoughts on that.

When I think about this, I mean, it seems obvious, but to say we need to stand against all forms of adult entertainment and not accept them as just healthy outlets for freedom of expression, that it's exploitation and make a determination in our own heart. I'm just not going to be a part of that. And if I am, I'm going to pursue help so that I can live in a way that I'm not contributing in any form, whether great or small. And then I think along with that, many of us, by God's grace, will be in friendship circles, work situations, maybe family situations that do still carry a mindset of like, oh, all the guys are going to the club after work, or on the, you know, bachelor party, they're hiring a stripper. Or we. Or we make light of that industry just like a normal thing. And we may be the voice that speaks up, not with condemnation, but to be light and to offer a perspective that says, hey, have you ever considered the people involved in that and what this industry is doing and the damage and the level of trafficking that goes on? And obviously we have to be careful about that. We may not feel called to lose friendships over it or suddenly be that guy or that girl that always is, you know, on our soapbox. But on the other hand, we maybe are so fearful in today's, you know, cancel culture of saying anything that we just turn a blind eye to places where we're there, we're hearing the conversation. We could say, you know, have you ever thought about the other side of this? Have you ever considered that maybe that's not just a small thing, that this might be really impacting? And. And if God could use us in those situations to speak up, we could be a part of changing some of that cultural. Cultural narrative that stops normalizing abuse and exploitation and instead calls it what it is and could be a part of creating culture change.

Yes.

Yeah, I think this is one of those topics where we have a mutual goal with the churched and non church. When I wear my porn kills love T shirts around, it doesn't matter if it's my church friends, my super feminist liberal friends. It's like most people recognize that this is a problem on some level, even if they're struggling with it or they see the impact in their families even when they're struggling with it. And I think even in all of Our conversations. And you do a really good job with it, Ray. Just when we're having conversations that we, We. We throw in there, we get it. This is a ongoing human temptation. This is, you know, sexual things. They trigger our brain. And it. And it, it can be a struggle, and it's, it's not good for us, and it's not good for humanity, and it's not good for the church. And so just to make sure that that shame is out of our language when we're calling people up and, and that we're. We're doing this in a way that invites people into this mutual realization that this needs attention, that this big issue, this global issue, needs attention.

Yeah, I think that's one of the advantages of having been such a sinner, saved by the amazing grace of God, is I'll almost always lead with my own past failures to kind of break the tension and the fear that people have around it. So there is an upside, you know, in redemption, even to the worst of the sins and the depravity. It's like, yeah, me too, me too. And so it does help if people would be transparent and there's a humility that God requires of his people that we would be very open about our struggles and what God is dealing with or what he has conquered. It's very helpful to hear others.

Yeah. Well, Ray, we are so grateful for your openness, for the work you're doing in this area to help others, for your willingness to be a voice that speaks honestly about this. And as we wrap up today's podcast, what final advice, word of encouragement would you like to leave listeners with today?

I just am so grateful for this ministry and other ministries like this, like the 423 community. I'm friends with Rachel and appreciative of, you know, the presence you guys have on the, on the Internet and so on. There are people out there that don't have a lot of access to great programs, or they don't have access to mentors, or they don't have the money for really good, expensive counseling and so on. I just want to encourage people, whether it's, you had a sordid past and you still feel shame around it, and maybe you were even in that industry and you're a Christian and you're trying to fumble your way towards redemption and grace like the rest of us, or you're somebody who's purchased sex or you've been on the demand side. Christ is the solution and the hope for both, and his being planted in us is the beginning of the journey. But his increase, like a seedling breaking out of its hardened encasing and popping up through the soil and then growing is his goal. It's his eternal goal for every believer. Not to be stuck where he's just a seed inside the soil bed that you are, but that he grows forth and dominates that Adamic life. You know, we talked about that briefly before. He has a divine life and he can help you wherever you're at if you don't have all those resources. That Christ is supreme and capable and that God will help you wherever you're at and he'll lead you to the resources that he has intended for you. So I just wanted to encourage people out there, no matter which side you are on, we serve and love a powerful and capable Christ. Well, thank you.

Amen. Ashley, any last thoughts from you?

No, I just, I think this conversation was really good just to, like you said in the beginning, Nick, touch on the other side. I don't know if you said curtain or coin or. But just that, you know, it's a privilege to get to do what we do where we can talk about all these issues and, and not have shame around any of them because we want to see the church and churched people, big, big church feel brave enough and equipped enough to have these conversations. So I think today even could give people language and how to talk about this.

Yeah, I think that's my hope as we wrap up. I know a lot of our listeners are in group or leading a group or joining a group and that's why they found the podcast. And I think there can be a tendency in our group experience to kind of rank sinfulness. We even kind of joked about it like, well, I'm probably the best in the room or the top of the list and that there's some natural human nature in that of like, well, you did this and I only went that far. And we might be fearful if we're one that did cross certain lines. Like, well, I think I'm a little beyond where most people are at. My reminder is the purpose of group and gathering a community is not to focus on the fruits of what it led us to. It's really to come back to those roots. And as we've talked about a lot in this conversation, when we go to the roots and what's driving us, we all have so much in common. We're all listening to a lot of the same lies. We're driven by a lot of the same needs and many of the God given needs that we're just trying to meet in unhealthy and sinful ways. And the more we focus on those roots, it gives us compassion for one another. It gives us grace for others or maybe grace for ourselves that no matter what level of fruit it took us to, at the root, we're in the same boat. Our co founder, Diane Roberts, is famous for saying, don't be shocked at their behavior, but be shocked at their pain.

Yeah.

And when we work with people in group or if our own story, the behavior, we might feel like, wow, that's way out there. But let's really look at what's the pain that drove us there, what's the pain that caused them to go down that route, and let's meet people there in their pain and their woundedness, because that's what ultimately leads to healing, recovery, and freedom.

So it's like being like beauty with a beast. You have to be able to see past that beastly outward form. You know, whatever the sins are, they're just so loud and they. They can feel intimidating and overwhelming. But being able to look for the prince.

Yeah.

Underneath in that person, which is my journey in my marriage.

Yeah. Yep.

See, I look at my beast.

See the. See the person and not the behavior.

Yes. Yeah.

I love that. Well, Ray, this has been a powerful conversation. It's been a unique conversation. I hope for all of our listeners. It's given them some. Some real food for thought, some attitudes maybe in their own heart they need to address and ways that I really appreciate the encouragement of prayer, of saying, let's actually pray about our own story. For people caught up in this industry, for what's happening in our world. Believing that that is a significant role that God has called every single one of us to.

And so especially leaders. That is. Should be an ongoing thing.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, Ray, thank you for joining us today. Loved having you on the podcast.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it, both of you, and for our listeners.

Thank you so much.

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Sam.